By William C. Shelton

One Spring night during my twentieth year, I entered a freeway onramp at an absurd speed. My motorcycle stopped when it was abruptly introduced to a guard rail, while I had a more prolonged flight, bouncing several times.

A Los Angeles Police cruiser stopped shortly thereafter. I couldn’t sit up, and I couldn’t tell how badly I was injured. Two LAPD officers joked about my stupidity and speculated as to whether I would live until I got to the hospital. They could not “intervene,” they said, because the onramp was outside their jurisdiction.

The responding Highway Patrol officer was calm, caring, and reassuring. He called an ambulance and later came by the hospital to see how I was doing.

These characters came to represent for me two very different faces of law enforcement. In the decades since, I’ve had occasion to observe police operating in L.A., San Francisco, New York, New Haven, Boston, and Somerville. I’ve found most to be more like the highway patrolman than the LAPDers. And I’ve found Somerville officers generally to be decent people who are doing a difficult job well.

Yes, there have been inexcusable incidents of brutality. Any opportunity to exercise greater-than-average authority—whether in law enforcement or electoral politics—will draw some disturbed people, and at some point, tempt all who serve. Most don’t yield.

Yes, I am a middle-aged white guy. But I’ve had occasion to observe the SPD responding to perhaps a dozen incidents involving people who were neither, and often not very cooperative. I can tell you that on every occasion, SPD officers were respectful, professional, and wise. I am glad that they are looking out for me.

But no one seems to be looking out for them. Since the city converted the MBTA car barn to the “Public Safety Building,” at least 8 police personnel have received cancer diagnoses. One recently died of lung cancer, and two who still work there are fighting it. Of 127 sworn personnel, between 15 and 30 carry inhalers for respiratory illness. It doesn’t take a CSI to see the obvious—this is way too high to be random.

Suspects include toxic residues from the MBTA facility, mold on food waste left in the ceiling by construction workers and undiscovered for six years; and an HVAC system that spread those mold spores. The system was installed in response to a scabies epidemic among building workers, but it only serves a portion of the facility. Some other rooms aren’t afren’t ventilated. Whichever the real perps are, they’re killers.

I would expect our city’s chief executive to demand their immediate apprehension and prosecution, yet there isn’t even an investigation. In this newspaper, our mayor was quoted as saying, “No one there is at risk.” Moreover, the city has no money to provide a healthy work environment for those who spend their working lives keeping us safe, and there is no credible plan to do so. I can think of no explanation for this denial of reality and responsibility that is not deeply shameful.

Yes, it’s true that forty years of good-old-boy decisions that rezoned net-tax-producing factories into net-tax-absorbing apartments have created a fiscal crisis. And it’s true that promises of a solution from new taxes generated by Christmas-Tree-Shop-style big-boxes are a cruel hoax, perpetuated to facilitate more such decisions.

Still, my neighbors and I would be willing to pay an additional twenty bucks on our tax bills to save the lives of those who protect us. I question the motivations of those who would not, and the integrity of politicians who wouldn’t ask them to.

Since our protectors have been unable to move our municipal conscience, they have filed suit. Those who criticize this action are the same people who chided Mystic View for appealing unlawful zoning decisions that would create many more heart- and lung-disease deaths. But when those with legal authority violate the law, the best recourse is the law. Other responses are more destructive and weaken our institutions.

Sergeant John Aufiero demonstrated unusual courage and leadership when he initiated this legal action, as have the patrolmen, officers, 911 operators, and firemen who joined it. Meanwhile, who else will show a little courage? Must we always go through years-long and costly legal actions before someone does the right thing?